Movie Review | 'Serving Sara'

Rich Man Wants a Divorce; His Wife Has Her Own Plans

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: August 23, 2002

When a comedy is so starved for laughs that it stoops to borrowing the gross-out gags of an earlier flop movie, it's a pretty sure sign of desperation. In "Serving Sara," which opens today nationwide, the alarm goes off when Joe Tyler (Matthew Perry), a process server posing as a veterinarian on a Texas cattle ranch, is forced to demonstrate his professional expertise by giving a prostate massage to an impotent bull named Tornado.

Those few who saw "Say It Isn't So," a comedy produced by the Farrelly Brothers that bombed at the box office last year, may recall the scene in which Chris Klein punched a cow from behind and found his arm stuck inside. Some jokes, apparently, are just so uproarious they have to be recycled. As for the movie's possibly being cruel to animals, not to worry. Although we see Mr. Perry flourishing an arm-length clear plastic glove, the examination is patently faked.

Tornado's therapeutic treatment is the nadir of "Serving Sara," a chaotic farce directed by Reginald Hudlin from a screenplay by Jay Scherick and David Ronn. The story follows Joe as he dashes around the country trying to serve divorce papers on Gordon Moore (Bruce Campbell), a greedy Texas cattleman who has grown bored with his beautiful wife, Sara (Elizabeth Hurley), and hopes to cheat her out of the fortune she helped him accumulate. Initially, Joe is instructed by his buffoonish boss, Ray (Cedric the Entertainer), to serve papers on Sara. But when he tracks her down, she makes him an offer he can't refuse: $1 million if he will switch sides and beat her husband to the punch.

Why any Texas cattle baron worth his cowboy boots would want to dump a woman like Sara in favor of a chirpy bimbo like Gordon's new girlfriend, Kate (Amy Adams), remains a mystery the movie wisely doesn't begin to tackle. As Joe and Sara team up against the boorish Gordon, the movie insists on giving the collaborators a budding, if embattled, flirtation. But Mr. Perry and Ms. Hurley have so little chemistry that they barely seem to notice each other even when they're halfheartedly sparring.

While Ms. Hurley more or less holds her own as a smart, flouncy babe, for Mr. Perry the movie is another sad step down from the plateau of the television series "Friends." If the actor is reasonably handy with comic accents, his blocky, charmless screen presence and attitude of blustery impatience make the movie sometimes hard to watch.

A subplot finds Joe and his office rival, Tony (Vincent Pastore), who was hired by Gordon after Joe's defection, frantically scheming to foil each other's plans. Poor Mr. Pastore becomes the butt of endless unfunny jokes demonstrating his character's stupidity.

With the dog days of August upon us, think of this dog of a movie as the cinematic equivalent of high humidity.

Directed by Reginald Hudlin; written by Jay Scherick and David Ronn; director of photography, Robert Brinkmann; edited by Jim Miller; music by Marcus Miller; production designer, Rusty Smith; produced by Dan Halsted; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 100 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.